Mr. Maule, Adelaide's rejected lover, had
dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There
had been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all
understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave the
Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at Matching. "We
expect a friend of yours to be with us," the Duchess had said. He had
afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it; but he
was not to reach Matching till the day after that on which Phineas
arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning,
and had been much flurried by the news.
"But we have quarrelled," she said. "Then the best thing you can do
is to make it up again, my dear," said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was
undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so
terrible an evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so
rough a remedy as this. The Duchess, who had become used to all the
disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect as
some do to the niceties of a young lady's feelings, thought that it
would be only necessary to bring the young people together again.
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